On a map Debuque to St. Paul looks like a short drive.

It is actually 5,000,000,000 miles!

By the time we actually got to a bar to eat in, I had to piss so bad my teeth were running boat races.

Earlier in the week we recieved an invitation from 22 Chemicals, one of the bands we were playing with, to drop by their house and chill out there instead of in a hellish bar.

So we did

We get there after dinner.

They have a fire pit, beer and a big backyard.

Nice.



We go to the bar.

There is an insane crackhead chick standing in front of the venue screaming at passersby.

When its time for us to play, we haul our stuff up on the stage.

Jason plugs in his amp, reaches behind it, flips on the "on" switch and get a jolt of electrons that induces several seconds of painful yet humorous looking twitching.



We borrow a guitar amp, as well as the usual bass amp and soldier on.

The gig was a success.



The gig was over.

The "tour" was over.

It will take us two days to drive home.

It is quite a haul from Cinci to Dubuque. It required lots of coffee shop muffins....



...and phone calls...



None of us knew anything about Dubuque.

Turns out it is a genuine river town with loads of old school architecture.

The venue is in the basement of what is apparently a very nice restaraunt.

For me, the highlight was seeing this store:



Of course, I had to borrow yet another bass amp.

Thanks to JC Brown & The Uptown Sound for that!

We play a great show, meet some very nice people and then stayed in a hellish hotel.

Travellers be forwarned...staying at The Canfield requires a unique combination of high tolerance for strangeness and very low standards for everything else.

We packed up our trusty econoline and hit the road.

First stop on the "You Call That A Tour?" Tour was Bozeman Montana.

"Bozeman?" I can almost hear you asking. 

Turns out that The Filling Station in Bozeman is an oasis in the great American Nowhere.





There are certain rules associated with being a touring band.

One of them is that whenever a band shows up from another town it is a really good idea to not piss off the locals.

Rest assured that 5 minutes after pulling into Bozeman Montana, the Purrs van was being yelled at by 300+ pounds of pissed of white chick from behind the wheel of her late model car.

We'd made a wrong turn and were turning around which inconvenienced her for a whole 3 seconds.

Three seconds is a lifetime to meth fueled hunk of white shit.

Craig smiled and waved from behind the wheel of our faithful van.

We stagger into the Filling Station after way too many hours on the road.

I see 2 totally hot lesbian girls kissing each other full on the mouth near the bar......I feel right at home.....all is well with the world.





We play the first show of our "You call that a tour?" tour.



We make it all the way to the last song before something interesting happens.

A very drunk, beautiful girl enters the bar and makes a bee line for the stage.

I am singing when she enters the room.

She is coming towards the front of the stage.

She is 5 feet from the stage but doesn't seem to be showing any sign of slowing her approach.

2 feet away now..still no slowing...collision imminent!!!...brace for impact!!!

The stage hits her at the knees and she topples forward, hitting the microphone stand which hits me in the face.

Her falling body continues downwards crushing a 16 ounce Miller some audience member was nice enough to give me.

She is now laying face down on the stage, a pool of spilled beer darkening the carpet around her head like a halo.

What an entrance.

She rights herself and demands we play more tunes....how could we refuse?

I sleep in the van on top of the gear most nights when we go on the road.

I like having some time to myself and I like to study the van's fuzzy ceiling carpet up close.

Waking up is often a drag because I can never figure out where to take a morning piss.

This morning was no different. I woke up and walked block after block until I found a Starbuck's to score a coffee and use their facilities.

This Starbucks is part of that disturbing trend ( I know, I know, Starbucks is actually part of several disturbing trends) to lock down their bathrooms with a combination lock so not just anyone can take a piss. In most places you have to ask for the combination, which is annoying and humilating enough. But not this time. One of the baristas walked me back to the bathroom and dialed in the combination for me and opened the door. Now that is service. Maybe next time they will shake out the last few drops for me too. It must be annoying and humiliating for the workers as well I would think....if I were to spend any more time thinking about it, that is....

After choking down the over cooked swill that passes for coffee there, I walked the 100 miles back to the van. Breakfast, exodus....Eugene.



We were being hosted for the evening by Jason's friend Jason. And then we went to eat at Jason's Bar and Grill, before Jasoning over to the JasonBar where we proceeded to totally get Jasoned out of our minds.

Luckey's Cigar Bar...

 

We hadn't been to Eugene in several years but the last time we played there we played the same bar we played tonight.

They still had a Purrs sticker in the Men's room that we'd placed there o-so-many years ago. I love that.

Here's a picture of Craig, the drummer for The Purrs.

I collapsed into one of the plush leather couches at Luckey's and entered a meditational state which I sat in until it was time for us to play.

Band #3 had bailed on the show, so we suddenly found ourselves with 2+ hours of stage time to kill.

We made a quick list of every song of ours Bob (the new guy) actually knew how to play, then crossed off the ones that the rest of us (the old guys) didn't know how to play, then proceeded to bring the rock.

It was a success of course.

After the show, more drinking ensued. Then it was back to Jason's house where more drinking ensued. Around 3 in the morning, the hippie punk neighbors from next door flooded into the house and a full grill session took place with cheeseburgers, hot dogs and all the condiments.

I fled to the van to pass out.

Morning, drive a million miles home, pass out, wake up, go to work.

We got a new van.

Connie got sold to the kids in Saturna.

We packed up our new guitarist Bob into our new van and drove to Portland to play a weekend's worth of Oregon shows.

We pulled into town and went directly to Old Town Pizza. We go there quite a bit. The food is awesome and Jason's brother runs the joint. In fact, due to the number of gratis meals we've recieved there I think I can safely call them a full-on sponsor of The Purrs.

We played Slabtown, which is a scum hole where the beer is plentiful and the art is good.









This is our new guitar player, Dr. Robert:

Before we played I was approached by someone calling himself "Peter" who proceeded to relay an account of an evening of great sex he had a while back. He said that he and his partner in the festivities played the song "Taste Of Monday" on loop and just had a good old time. I'm pretty sure that is the first time anyone has said anything like that to me.

Peter is obviously a principled, intelligent gentleman of the highest caliber and with the most refined taste in music.



Craig likes hanging out in bars and drinking:





So does Jason...

Our show went well and we sold enough CDs and T-shirts to pay for gas to the next town, Eugene.

Here is great little review of this show from Finest Kiss.